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Mehmed Tutmic. Photo: Court of BiH
The Bosnian state court has revised verdicts convicting Mehmed Tutmic, under which he was sentenced to four years in prison for going to Syria to fight and one-and-a-half years for the illegal possession of arms or explosive substances, and given him a combined sentence of five years and five months.
In May 2017, the state court handed down a second-instance verdict sentencing Tutmic to four years in prison because he travelled to Turkey via Serbia by car on July 17, 2013 and then illegally crossed the Syrian border with the intention to fight for so-called Islamic State
He remained in Syria stayed until his return to Bosnia and Herzegovina by plane on August 11, 2014.
Tutmic was originally accused alongside Enes Mesic and others of organising a terrorist group, but he went on the run for 14 months.
An arrest warrant was issued after he had failed to respond to several summons to enter his plea before the state court. He was arrested in November 2016.
After his terrorism trial ended, Tutmic stood trial before the Zenica Municipal Court for illegal possession of arms.
The Municipal Court sentenced him in February 2020 to one-and-a-half years in prison.
In August 2020, the Cantonal Court in Zenica confirmed the decision, rejecting an appeal filed by Tutmic’s defence as unfounded.
The indictment filed by the cantonal prosecution of Zenica Doboj Canton charged Tutmic with having a Kalashnikov rifle and more than 800 pieces of ammunition for rifles, a hand-held mortar and four grenades, ten electronic detonating caps, seven safety fuses, several exploding bullets, a hand grenade and ammunition boxes inside a house and auxiliary buildings in the village of Orahovica, near Zenica, during August 2016.
According to the indictment, the arms and ammunition were found and confiscated in mid-August 2016 by officers of the Police Administration from Zenica during a search of the facilities by order of the Zenica Municipal Court.
